Pigmented surface coating, or paint technology, is widely employed in the automotive industry. Original equipment manufacturers, including vehicle assemblers and suppliers, consume tremendous quantities of paints, the majority of which are applied to interior trim components, exterior body panels and other visibly exposed surfaces. While the varieties of paint technologies are numerous, perhaps the most widespread general variety includes liquid paints comprising pigments carried in a binder base. Other varieties include powder coatings including epoxy paints.
Automotive applications present a variety of challenges to paint technology. Apart from the physical performance objectives such as durability and application characteristics, consistent color matching capability remains a major challenge. This challenge is particularly acute in modern day automotive assembly plants where painted components arrive from various locations in pre-painted condition for final assembly with other remotely painted components to a vehicle having panels and major surfaces painted in an on-site paint facility. Even the on-site paint facility may produce panels which are preferably treated as fungible components for retrieval and assembly to the vehicle without regard for particular paint production runs. Smooth vehicle assembly operations may be significantly hindered by shortfalls in color matching capabilities resulting in subjective component substitution and swapping out of panels in an attempt to achieve an aesthetically pleasing color match among the integrated vehicle components, panels and surfaces.
Additionally, apart from a variety of performance objectives and color matching capability, flexibility to market place demands remains a major challenge. Historically, color preferences tend to run in cycles and when a color loses its appeal or uniqueness, the customer's desires and demands change also. Such color preferences may be fleeting, and by the time a paint is brought to market, the preferences may have changed or waned. Unfortunately, a substantial developmental lead time affects the vehicle manufacturer's response flexibility to the temporal nature of the customer's color preferences. The lead time is generally attributed to pre-production requirements including performance validation testing and other physical properties testing. Also, it is recognized that the paint color selection and release for production process, particularly at the conception stage, relies heavily upon subjective judgment of the paint "alchemists" on how best to achieve a paint formulation for achieving a desired color.